Japan-headquartered telecommunications and internet group SoftBank plans to form a Latin America-focused fund, Bloomberg has reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.
The prospective fund would be led by Marcelo Claure, who was appointed SoftBank’s chief operating officer in May 2018, and it could be sized in the billions of dollars according to one source.
The news came after a report in Brazilian financial daily Valor Econômico late last month that SoftBank was set to lead a $190m round for Brazil-based gym membership service Gympass.
The Latin American fund would operate separately to Vision Fund, the fund managed by the corporate that currently now stands at $98.6bn in size.
SoftBank has not confirmed its investment in Gympass, which runs a service present in 15 countries across Latin America, Europe and the US that enables users to access a range of gyms for a monthly subscription fee. It is also available as an option for corporate use.
The prospective investment would value the company at $1.1bn and would make up the first tranche of a round that could exceed $500m. It existing backers include General Atlantic, which invested an undisclosed sum in 2017, Redpoint eVentures, Atomico, KaszeK Ventures, Valor Capital.
SoftBank has already made several Latin American investments, providing $100m of funding for Brazil-based ride hailing service 99 in May 2017, before Vision Fund invested a further $100m in Brazil-based last-mile delivery service Loggi in October 2018.
